Patient care in a hospital requires medical staff to provide a multiplicity of expendable supplies to patients during confinement to hospital beds and it is both hygienic and effective to ensure that such supplies are well organized, accountable, and efficiently maintained to prevent spread of infection and to provide necessary amenities for the care and convenience of the patient.
Recent developments in medical care settings such as intensive care units have shown a significant increase in the number of patient sensors, monitors and infusion devices for functions such as monitoring heart and ECG respiration rates with oxygen saturation and carbon dioxide levels, taking blood pressure readings, and delivering medications through intravenous (IV) pumps, saline drips, syringe pumps, etc. However, the increase in medical capabilities has also increased the clutter around patients in hospital beds.
Further, it has been reported that cross type bacterial infections contracted in hospital settings are on the increase from categories such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus), VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococci), and ESBL (extended spectrum beta-lactamase), which contribute to an estimated 19,000 fatalities and 80,000 hospital infections per year. Hence, hospitals must maintain optimal hygienic conditions at all times in all patient care situations.
Medical patients in hospitals, nursing homes, and home care situations routinely use a common set of expendable medical supplies. These supplies can include for example, tissues, a pill cup, a small drinking cup, alcohol wipes, surgical tape, an emesis basin (kidney-shaped container), and other miscellaneous items such as over-the-counter medicines in containers or tubes, syringes without needles for fluid medications, scissors, supplies for IV tubing and connectors, a thermometer, a disposable stethoscope, and any number of other medical products.
Too often these supplies are not organized and tend to be randomly placed on counters, sink areas, night stands, adjustable overbed tables, on the bed itself, and anywhere that seems unoccupied at the time the items need to be set aside or stored. Note that two other expendable supplies used in hospital care include latex gloves and hand sanitizer. However, these two items are usually found in wall-mounted dispensers, not scattered about. Gloves and sanitizer are also used more by care providers and visitors, rather than as patient-use items. Hence, these items are not included in the list of routine expendable supplies that are relevant to the invention described here.
When a bed-restricted patient needs any expendable medical items, if they are scattered about, they may not be located or accessed at arm's reach or as quickly and easily as the situation may require. Even ambulatory patients who can get out of bed too often find accessibility to some items to be inconvenient at the time of need. Most hospital rooms with typical hospital beds also include an overbed table that has an offset vertical base support that adjusts the table surface higher or lower over the bed and has wheels for easy repositioning relative to the bed and patient. An overbed table provides a surface directly accessible to a patient from the hospital bed. However, items on one of these tables can easily fall over or onto the floor because the table tends to become unstable when it is bumped or abruptly moved.
The overbed table, nightstand, and nearby sink or shelf counters are also routinely used for setting non-medical items such as food, drinks, mail, reading materials, toys and games, electronic devices of every type, and personal care items (toothbrush, cosmetics, hair brush, etc.). The unavoidable intermingling of these items creates a disorganized situation that is inefficient and inconvenient for the patient and care providers who have to locate expendable items during routine care procedures. The more disorganized the situation, the easier it is for non-medical and expendable medical supplies to be tipped over or knocked to the floor from any location.
More important, if the expendable items are set upon an unsanitary surface, which happens whenever non-medical items are brought into the hospital room, the items will become dirty and germ-laden, which will expose the patient to other potential diseases and infections. This is particularly important in hospital situations where special care must be taken to avoid germ exposure and unsanitary conditions. The term “germs” of course is common usage and refers to the three most common types of infections, which are caused by viruses, bacteria, and fungi.
When a patient has an infection of one type, they can be vulnerable to additional infections and complications. In humans, white blood cells are important for fighting infection. When a patient has a white blood cell count too low to provide adequate protection to the person, the condition is called Neutropenia. When Neutropenic conditions apply or other diseases that weaken the immune system occur, the hospital room the patient is in must be disinfected and strictly controlled to a greater degree to where special rules are put into effect to minimize infectious disease exposure to the vulnerable patient. Special rules for maintaining patients in more sterile conditions include surgery rooms, rooms for burn victims, intensive care situations, emergency department isolation rooms, some cancer patient situations, and rooms for organ transplant patients. These medical situations require careful control of medical treatment and expendable medical care items to minimize exposure to the patient and maximize convenience and efficiency for hospital care providers, patients, and visiting family members or friends.
The invention described here, which is called the “Organizer of Expendable Supplies for Medical Patients,” ensures that a group of typical generic expendable supplies routinely used by patients and care givers for patient care are available in a known location when needed. For simplicity, the “Organizer of Expendable Supplies for Medical Patients” will henceforth be called the “organizer tray.” The organizer tray will significantly improve convenience, efficiency, and general comfort for a patient and care providers because most routine expendable supplies will potentially be within easy reach, will be organized together in a known location, the supplies can be readily inventoried and replenished by filling designated slots, and it will be much easier to maintain more hygienic (relatively germ-free) conditions when the expendable items are stored separate from any other unsanitary surfaces or non-medical items that are routinely found in hospital rooms. Spillage will also be reduced, which will further improve hygienic conditions.
Traditional hospital practice has been to provide free-standing trays that can be placed on patient beds to collect necessary expendable supplies in a loose and non-constrained arrangement that is susceptible to mishandling and mislaying leading to placing the patient at risk of infection. The organizer tray will reduce or eliminate non-constrained, random arrangements and improve hygiene control to reduce infection potential.
There are several prior art examples of movable stands and trays attached to intravenous (IV) poles for hospital patient use, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,114,023, Lavin, providing a flat surface tray attached to a intravenous (IV) pole configured with merely surface cut-outs, U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,604, Kelly et al, provides for a flat surface attached to an intravenous (IV) pole, U.S. Pat. No. 6,969,031, Ugent et al, provides for an obliquely oriented handle coupled to an IV pole provided with an electrical receptacle and power cord. None of these prior art examples provide an organizer that ensures the group of typical generic expendable supplies routinely used by patients and care givers are available when needed in a clean, hygienic, accountable, inventoried and replenishable manner.
To overcome these significant operational limitations and shortcomings in existing prior art in the management and accessibility of expendable medical supplies, the inventive concept described as The Organizer of Expendable Supplies for Medical Patients (OESMP or organizer tray) is disclosed hereunder.
The Organizer of Expendable Supplies for Medical Patients has a multitude of potential applications such as hospital critical care situations, nursing homes, or home health care.
The Organizer of Expendable Supplies for Medical Patients (OESMP or organizer tray) would not require US FDA approval and comprise electrical components that are standard commercially-off-the-shelf (COTS) items, and wherein direct patient intervention and monitoring that impact a patient's status are not applicable for US FDA review requirements.
The organizer tray has numerous convenience features and functions. The organizer tray consists of a molded material that has slots at dimensions that will fit and hold most expendable supply products used by hospitals that include: small boxes of facial tissues, a kidney-shaped emesis basin, a 120 ml drinking cup (equal to four ounces), a 30 ml plastic medicine cup (equal to 30 cc or about one ounce), a roll of surgical tape, and small individual packets of isopropyl alcohol wipes. In addition, the organizer tray comes with hooks for hanging items and a rectangular slot for placing miscellaneous items such as a scissors, a small flashlight (required by the nursing staff during nighttime patient checks), or other medical support items to include over-the-counter medications.
The organizer tray has two embodiments and is shown in the FIGS. 1 to 9. One embodiment has no electrical components (called the non power variant); the other embodiment includes electrical components (called the powered or electrical variant). Three general slot organizations and tray shapes are shown. The organizer tray itself will be composed of an injection molded composite material. Each embodiment or variant has trapezoid or A-shaped metal points affixed to the front and rear sides of the organizer tray. Each embodiment has an attachment assembly that allows the organizer tray to be readily attached and detached to the vertical shaft of an Intravenous (IV) pole so that the organizer tray can be made readily available for patients when an IV pole is being continuously used for patient care.
The organizer tray also comes with two matching C-clamps that can be attached to the A-shaped attachment components in front and rear of the tray so that the tray can be attached to the metal or plastic guard rail found on most hospital beds. Based on a patient's preference for access or a hospital standard operating procedure, the organizer tray can be secured on an IV pole, on the top bed rail when the safety rail is horizontal to the bed and floor, or the IV clamp or bed rail clamps can be detached from the organizer tray so that it can be placed on a flat surface such as an overbed table or nightstand.
Most hospital beds have two bed rails on each side of mechanical beds (four total of equal size). The upper half bed rails provide security for patients from about their waist area up to their head. When a patient raises the bed mattress to become more upright, the bed rail raises parallel with it on most beds because it is attached to the moving frame. The bed rails on the lower half of the bed also move when the mattress is raised as well. However, most patients prefer to keep the lower part of the bed horizontal and only raise the upper bed. In order to use the organizer tray on a bed rail, the rail would have to remain relatively horizontal, as any amount of rising of the rail with the bed would tilt the organizer tray and cause any items stored on it to become unstable. The bed rail clamps would also be attachable to the head or foot boards on some hospital beds, but these locations are less convenient for patients compared to the organizer tray being attached to either an IV pole or a bed rail. Attaching the organizer tray to a bed rail or board is useful, but the caveats for use mentioned here make this configuration less preferable.